• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1085-1101
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• 2015

Changes in substructure conditions, such as ballast fouling and subgrade settlement may cause the railway quality deterioration, including the differential geometry of the rails. The objective of this study is to develop and apply a hybrid cone penetrometer (HCP) to characterize the railway substructure. The HCP consists of an outer rod and an inner mini cone, which can dynamically and statically penetrate the ballast and the subgrade, respectively. An accelerometer and four strain gauges are installed at the head of the outer rod and four strain gauges are attached at the tip of the inner mini cone. In the ballast, the outer rod provides a dynamic cone penetration index (DCPI) and the corrected DCPI (CDCPI) with the energy transferred into the rod head. Then, the inner mini cone is pushed to estimate the strength of the subgrade from the cone tip resistance. Laboratory application tests are performed on the specimen, which is prepared with gravel and sandy soil. In addition, the HCP is applied in the field and compared with the standard dynamic cone penetration test. The results from the laboratory and the field tests show that the cone tip resistance is inversely proportional to the CDCPI. Furthermore, in the subgrade, the HCP produces a high-resolution profile of the cone tip resistance and a profile of the CDCPI in the ballast. This study suggests that the dynamic and static penetration tests using the HCP may be useful for characterizing the railway substructure.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.159-172
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• 2022

To improve the accuracy of the standard penetration test (SPT) results, smart measurement system, which considers the energy transfer ratio into the sampler (ETR_Sampler), is required. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of joints and rod length on the transferred energy into the sampler. The energy transfer ratios into the rod head (ETR_Head) and ETR_Sampler, and the energy ratio from the head to the sampler (ER_HS) were obtained using energy modules, which were installed at the rod head and above the SPT sampler. Linear regression analyses are conducted to correlate the ER_HS with the number of joints, rod length, and SPT N-values. In addition, the dynamic resistances are calculated using both transferred energies into the rod head and into the sampler, and are compared with the corrected cone tip resistance measured from the cone penetration test (CPT). While the ETR_Head are generally constant, but the ETR_Sampler and ER_HS gradually decrease along the depth or the number of joints, except at certain depths with high SPT N-values. Thus, the ER_HS can be estimated using the number of joints, rod length, and SPT N-values. The dynamic resistance evaluated by E_Sampler produces a better correlation with the corrected cone tip resistance than that by E_Head. This study suggests that transferred energy into the SPT sampler may be effectively used for more accurate subsurface characterization.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.197-216
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• 2016

The increased speed of a train causes increased loads that act on the track substructures. To ensure the safety of the track substructures, proper maintenance and repair are necessary based on an accurate characterization of strength and stiffness. The objective of this study is to develop and apply a cone penetrometer incorporated with the dynamic cone penetration method (CPD) for investigating track substructures. The CPD consists of an outer rod for dynamic penetration in the ballast layer and an inner rod with load cells for static penetration in the subgrade. Additionally, an energy-monitoring module composed of strain gauges and an accelerometer is connected to the head of the outer rod to measure the dynamic responses during the dynamic penetration. Moreover, eight strain gauges are installed in the load cells for static penetration to measure the cone tip resistance and the friction resistance during static penetration. To investigate the applicability of the developed CPD, laboratory and field tests are performed. The results of the CPD tests, i.e., profiles of the corrected dynamic cone penetration index (CDI), profiles of the cone tip and friction resistances, and the friction ratio are obtained at high resolution. Moreover, the maximum shear modulus of the subgrade is estimated using the relationships between the static penetration resistances and the maximum shear modulus obtained from the laboratory tests. This study suggests that the CPD test may be a useful method for the characterization of track substructures.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.73-83
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• 2017

Laboratory and in-situ tests were conducted to evaluate the cone factors for the layers with low plasticity containing a lot of silty and sand soils from the west coast (Incheon, Hwaseong and Gunsan areas) and its applicability was evaluated based on these results. The cone factors were evaluated from 19 to 23 based on unconfined compression strengths (qu), from 13 to 13.8 based on simple CU strengths and from 11.6 to 13.1 based on field vane strengths, respectively. The unconfined compression strengths of undisturbed silty soil samples with low plasticity were considerably underestimated due to the change of in-situ residual effective stress during sampling. Half of unconfined compression strength (qu/2) based cone factors of silty soils with low plasticity fluctuated and were approximately 1.8 times higher than simple CU based values of these soils. When evaluating cone factors of these soils, it should be judged overall on the physical properties such as the grain size distribution and soil plasticity and on the fluctuation of the corrected cone resistance and the sleeve friction due to the distribution of sandseam in the ground including pore pressure parameter.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.81-86
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• 1999

The installation of vertical drains by means of a mandrel causes significant remolding of the subsoil, especially in the immediate vicinity of the mandrel. Thus, a zone of smear will be developed with reduced permeability and increased compressibility. This paper is mainly concerned with a field study to investigate the effect of smear due to vertical drain installation. In the present study, a field smear test was conducted to assess the extent of the smear zone around the vertical drain. The extent of the smear zone around a vertical drain was evaluated from the CPT results. CPT test was carried out to some distance around the mandrel installation. The test results revealed that a smear zone was estimated to be 3.6~5.3 times of the mandrel diameter.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.63-72
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• 2015

This paper describes the correlation and relationship between elastic moduli measured by three stiffness measurement methods with different mechanical characteristics to evaluate the compaction characteristics of subgrade soils. The Soil Stiffness Gauge (SSG) with very small strain (${\approx}0.001%$) ranges, static Plate Loading Test (PLT) with mid-level strain (${\approx}0.01{\sim}0.1%$) ranges, and Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP) using penetration resistance were implemented to measure the elastic modulus. To use the elastic modulus measured by different measurement methods with a wide range of strain in practice, it is required to identify the correlation and relationship of measured values in advance. The comparison results of the measured elastic moduli ($E_{SSG}$, $E_{PLT}$, $E_{DCP}$) using the three measurement methods for domestic and overseas subgrade soils under various conditions indicate that the evaluated elastic modulus relies on the types of soils and the level of stress condition. The correlation analysis of the measured elastic moduli except the data of cement treated soils indicates that the static elastic modulus ($E_{PLT}$) is evaluated as about 60 to 80% of the dynamic elastic modulus ($E_{SSG}$). Unusual soils such as cement treated soils are required to be corrected by the stress correction during the correlation analysis with typical soils, because these types of soils are sensitive to the stress condition when measuring the static elastic modulus ($E_{PLT}$) of soils. In addition, when considering the use of DCP data for the evaluation of the elastic modulus ($E_{DCP}$), the measured data of the elastic modulus less than 200 MPa show more reliable correlation.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.53-66
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• 2009

Recently, the importance of investigation for soft ground has been raised, so that various techniques of the investigation for soft ground are being introduced and applied. In particular, Piezocone penetration test has been utilized frequently home and abroad to identify many features of grounds precisely and gain various results in accordance with dividing strata and depth constantly by measuring continuously. In this study, to identify some features of soft clays distributed in the estuary of Nakdong river, researchers conducted field tests and laboratory tests with boring tests, and analyzed and compared with Piezocone penetration test. In addition, credible Piezocone factor of communities of subjects for this study was estimated to analyze some features of undrained shear strength of clay and calculate Piezocone factor compared with corrected cone resistance and apply some statistical techniques to estimated Piezocone factor.